** INsight** by James Webb

The End of “Listeners”
by James Webb

If there is one thing you can do today to survive the future of radio, stop thinking of your cume as listeners and think of them as users. With the arrival of PPM this will be even more apparent, because PPM is all about cume.

Why is radio so late to the New Media party? It’s astonishing to me that radio is so far behind. As a guy with 13+ years of experience in the web industry, I’ve seen so many industries adapt and even transform themselves. There are a lot of reasons, but some of the most obvious are:

1. Radio web site advertising is still largely “value add” instead of being a significant part of non spot development.
2. Fear that the web will take listeners away from the core asset, or hurt ratings.

Listeners are engaged only when the radio is on. Radio users connect with you in other ways, strengthening your brand and encouraging loyalty with each touch. They access your content whenever they want, however they want.

Many of our listeners - ahem! - users, return to our sites every day. Pictures, video, and more get posted on the web to supplement the on-air message. When the show is over, users go online and discuss it or pass it on. News junkies get timely text alerts, and hundreds of captive radio users stream our music station in their offices. The interesting thing about this is that new media, used effectively, propels users to listen to the radio more, not less.

Research has show again and again that web users are not particularly loyal. However, that changes when users are also engaged in broadcast media, particularly when there is additional, compelling content available there.

The Importance of Cume Applies to the Web, Too
Cume, when applied to the web, is called uniques or unique visitors. You may have heard about another web metric, the page view, which is the number of times a web page is delivered in a given amount of time, usually in a month. However, as web sites become more like applications, page views aren’t as important any more; in fact, in 2-3 years this metric will be practically irrelevant. Instead, it will be all about the size of your web audience (uniques), how much you know about them (database), and how well you serve them (return visits). Sound familiar?

Ad impressions are important, too, but as Google discovered some time ago - it’s not just about quantity, it’s about the context and quality of the referral.
It’s no secret that advertising is getting more personal. Targeted marketing works as well for consumers as it does for advertisers. If you engage your users outside of their cars and offices, you’ll get to know them better. The better you know them, the more you can help your advertisers sell to them, and the stronger your relationship with both will be.

--James Webb is New Media Director for Bonneville's Phoenix cluster. The opinions expressed are his own. He can be reached at 602-200-2659 or jrwebb@bonneville.com.

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** INsight!** Why the Web Can't Be Ignored - by Gordon Borrell

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Why the Web Can't Be Ignored
By Gordon Borrell

My jaw dropped the other day when I read in Inside Radio a discussion of how radio operators should approach Internet advertising. The message: Don’t overestimate the Internet opportunity, don’t be distracted by it, and treat it as a brand extension.

Wow. The last time a new medium as significant as the Internet came along, the radio industry took the exact opposite approach – and won Big Time.

It was 60 years ago, and the new medium was television. Many radio stations did indeed believe in the “brand extension” idea and carried their call letters over to the broadcast TV medium. But think of how disastrous the result might have been if they were advised not to overestimate the TV opportunity, not be distracted by it, and to merely use it as a product extension.

The cold, hard facts are this: The Internet has followed the same growth patterns in terms of consumer and advertiser acceptance as television did in its first 15 years. As an advertising medium, the Internet is already larger than radio. It will approach $34 billion this year and is on a trajectory to overtake newspaper advertising within five years. In virtually all markets, the largest local Web site (typically run by a newspaper company) is now grossing more ad revenue than the largest radio station in that market. In some markets, the largest site is grossing more than the largest cluster of stations.

Don’t overestimate the Internet opportunity? That’s like telling your ten-year-old, “Listen, son, most people in our family are shorter than average, so stop watching basketball and stop wanting to eat so much.”

Here’s another cold, hard fact...and I’m truly sorry to have to tell you this. Your radio reps have a bounty on their heads. We survey more than 3,000 local Web sites every year about their revenues, expenses, number of salespeople and other revenue-related topics. The ones with the greatest market share and revenue have an interesting characteristic in common: a star-performing “former radio rep” on the sales staff. The word has spread that radio salespeople know how to sell the Internet, and newspaper and TV Web site managers have been recruiting them left and right. Radio reps know how to cold-call, how to generate new business, and how to sell reach and frequency. That’s a perfect match for Internet sales.

While the newspapers and TV stations seized a combined $3.9 billion in online ad sales last year employing a growing battalion of online-only sales reps, radio Web sites garnered a paltry $190 million using…well, radio reps.

In my humble opinion, the radio industry has forgotten its entrepreneurial history. It is underestimating this new opportunity and has been deluded into thinking its reps can simultaneously sell radio and Internet advertising. They can’t – at least not to any great extent. This problem is not unique to radio. Show me a single instance where a rep is selling two separate media and achieving a significant share of advertising in both, and I’ll buy you dinner and stand outside and watch you eat it.

Frankly, I’m surprised by your industry. Radio is an extremely creative, interactive, and niche-oriented medium. Those are the same attributes ascribed to the Internet. Radio is missing opportunities to recapture the lost youth segment online by creating localized versions of MySpace or Facebook. It is missing opportunities to leverage its entertainment expertise by creating sites like Metromix to reach a broader and entirely new audience. It is missing the opportunity to use the Internet as a publishing and broadcasting platform to dig into newspapers’ classifieds franchise, yellow pages’ directory franchise, and broadcast TV and cable’s video advertising.

In short, by viewing the Internet as a distraction and trying to manage it with internal sales teams, the radio industry is missing the boat.



--Gordon Borrell is CEO of Borrell Associates Inc. The opinions expressed are his own. He can be contacted at gborrell@borrellassociates.com.

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** INsight!** Dr. Robert Balon on talk radio and the ballot box.

There’s Nothing Wrong with Conservative Talk
By Dr. Robert E. Balon

There was quite a bit of hue and cry last week when our recent poll on the relationship between talk show hosts and voting behavior was released to the press. To summarize, we reported that 84% of respondents from our national sample of news and talk listeners stated that talk hosts did not directly influence their votes during the recent primaries.

Soon after that, some were saying that the fact that John McCain won in the Florida primary in spite of the exhortations of many conservative hosts was an indication that conservative talk radio was loosing its clout. But that’s not really what our research said at all.

Conservative talk radio has never been stronger or more poised for a significant contribution to the national political dialog. What we tried to point out was that that the “bully pulpit” that some hosts feel they have with regard to influencing a vote has never really existed.

People come to talk radio for a variety of reasons: for entertainment, information, confirmation. The fact that most felt that talk hosts don’t directly influence their vote was not a repudiation of any talent on the conservative or liberal side; rather, it was a reflection of just how complex and ego-involved attitudes about voting are. The message here is really quite simple: talk hosts should think about entertaining and informing their audiences, not about exhorting them toward certain political behaviors.

I restate: there’s nothing wrong with conservative talk radio or its audiences. And in the long run, ratings matter much more and are the only arbiter of success. Heavy-handed attempts to influence a victory or defeat are almost always unproductive and as listeners told us, tedious.


--Dr. Robert E. Balon is CEO of Austin-based The Benchmark Company. He can be reached at bmark@flash.net.

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** INsight!** Jeff Haley, CEO of the RAB

A Case for Optimism
By Jeff Haley

As the RAB commences its annual conference in Atlanta this week, I thought it important to reflect on what I believe to be the foundation for success in our business and why I am confident that the best days for radio lie ahead.

For me, two clear and simple facts stand out as guiding principles for all media, but especially radio. These are the central tenets of what we do.

First, radio operates in the public trust. A basis of all democracies is the belief that some things exist for the benefit of all. The airways we broadcast through, and the first amendment rights we exercise daily, are the cornerstones of our business. Our use of those airways is a privilege and a responsibility. Radio succeeds exceedingly well every single day in meeting this responsibility. Radio responds and serves its communities quickly, efficiently, effectively and passionately in times of crisis and joy. Together, we all share in this privilege and shoulder this responsibility, and we should understand and remember the nearly 100 year history of radio and its amazing success in doing so. We serve our listeners and all our constituencies by pursuing profit, but at the same time we act in the fulfillment of our public trust.

Second, radio is a service business. We create no tangible assets. Our capital expenditures are a proudly thin part of our infrastructure. Like any service business our assets are our people. In addition to our responsibility to serve the public trust, we have an equivalent responsibility to serve our customers. Our collective action in serving those customers determines our success and our reputation. The beauty of the service business is that there our no outside limits on how we provide that service, or the degree of effort we put forth in doing so, the potential scope of our success is truly infinite. There are as many ways to affect performance and reputation as there are people in radio. We are the product. Advertisers buy audience and, together, we develop measures that hold us accountable, but what drives those measures and what meets the grade is, in the final analysis, all up to us. We can shape and change our product to meet the needs of our customers and our listeners, or not. It is simply up to us.

Remembering and concentrating on the core focus of our mission, the operation of service businesses in the public trust, is for me a source of great optimism. We serve a public function that is greater than profit alone, and our success and reputation is based solely on the collective output of individual efforts. Radio is not simply a collection of hard assets like land or buildings. If our success is defined by our individual efforts and the scope and degree of that success is up to us, our efforts, our talent and our leadership; I am compelled to be optimistic. I believe that positive attitudes change everything. My response to difficulty is rooted in the strength that comes from an optimistic outlook. This is not naiveté. I do not reject or ignore the pessimistic viewpoint. I do, however, choose to respond to adversity through a positive viewpoint, because I believe doing so creates the power to change things for the better. I propose that our response to those who doubt the great future of radio is to send a bold signal of our success. Let’s embrace digital technology fully. Let’s fight back against the misperceptions about radio that are perpetrated everyday. Let’s declare our leadership in audio entertainment.

Let’s be passionate and enthusiastic. Let’s believe.



-- Jeff Haley is president and CEO of the Radio Advertising Bureau. The views expressed are his own. He can be contacted at jhaley@rab.com

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**INsight!** Imus' Three-Star Return* By John Mainelli

Imus' Three-Star Return
By John Mainelli

Wednesday, December 5, 2007
--published by http://www.insideradio.com/

It’s a good thing I decided to listen to two Don Imus comeback shows before writing a review, because the first one was scary bad. Yesterday’s show, however, showed some rays of hope, even though a technical nightmare at the RFD studio nearly scuttled it.

On Monday, Imus returned from exile with absolutely everything I hated about the WFAN show: shit-kicker country music (Levon Helm, live, performing endlessly); Deirdre Imus hawking her “green” products and, ahem, the couple’s work for the East Harlem Council; Imus touting his charity ranch and noting, panderingly, that “40 percent of the kids who come to the ranch are from minority groups and at least 10 percent are African-American”; Sen. Chris Dodd; Bo Dietl (a cheap rip-off of the already low-rent Norm Crosby); and Doris Kearns Goodwin. What, no Andrea Mitchell?!

Not only that, he groveled anew about his fatal Rutgers remark – several times – in the same self-flagellating manner that consumed the last few days of his ‘FAN show and, arguably, made an Alp out of a manageable mountain.

He also introduced us to comedian Tony Powell, his new black sportscaster, and comedienne Karith Foster, a new black sidekick who did out-of-place stand-up.

Every true Imus fan (like me) had to groan (like me) when Imus announced, without a hint of irony and sounding as convincing as Larry Craig, “The program is not going to change.” He went on to pledge, “[I’ll never] say anything that would ever make…anybody…regret that they forgave me.”

Hearing that is akin to a NASCAR announcer saying, “Listen up, folks. We’ve instituted strict new safety measures and we can now assure you that there will never, ever be a collision again. Enjoy the race.”

Don, if all you do from now on is “Meet the Press RFD,” Farid Suleman can kiss his investment goodbye. It’s a significant handicap anyway that you’re on RFD this time instead of MSNBC, where almost everybody in your beloved Beltway watched the show. RFD is based in my hometown of Omaha and yet the five people I polled there never heard of it and don’t know what it means (Rural Free [mail] Delivery).

When CBS wet its pants, ran crying into a corner, and fired Imus, countless people west of New York, Boston and DC asked me, “Who is this guy and why is the media making such a fuss over him?” What nobody wants to hear now is, “THIS is the guy everyone thinks is so special?!”

Don, you’ve got to bring back aggressively anti-PC, subversive humor -- and Bernie McGuirk. (All Bernie said on Monday was, “Hi.”) You can do it. You know how to get mileage out of innuendo, inflections, situational throwaway observations, character personas, and double entendres. Just don’t say anything that looks bad in print!

Also, and I say this with tough love because I think you’re one of the greats, lose the long riffs of country music and the shit-kicker live bands. You can’t be self-indulgent in your new environment -- not yet, anyway. You’ve got to prove yourself again. Furthermore, kindly remember that most of us think there’s more to life than just partisan politics, even if there is an election next year. And the reason you need Bernie back big time -- even more than before, this time with interview participation and everything -- is that Charles McCord isn’t strong enough to help you carry extended segments without any other action.

And, please, if you must employ malapropism, lose that clown Dietl and engage your WABC predecessor, who’s still on payroll doing the 5 a.m. hour – Curtis Sliwa. You could have some fun with WABC’s Sean Hannity and Bob Grant, too.

Yesterday’s Show No. 2 also had weak guests (and still no Bernie save for two peeps), but the two new sidekicks showed signs of working out quite well -- even though nobody could hear anybody due to the worst collection of technical glitches I’ve ever heard on radio. Imus even hinted he might walk off the show before ordering an unscheduled, extended break at one point.

Karith Foster lost her stand-up mode and even cracked you up a time or two. Tony Powell appears to have a wry, wicked wit. You chose well, I-man. But bring back McGuirk, too!

Imus, we need you more than ever to deal with humorless wenches like NOW president Kim Gandy who, I kid you not, thinks you’re being racist yet again by expecting Foster and Powell to be funny. Gandy told Newsday yesterday, “Why comedians? That’s the only thing women and blacks can do is be funny? I don’t find that encouraging.” God help us all.

Tuesday’s RFD-based tech disaster notwithstanding, kudos to Phil Boyce and everyone else at WABC for staging Imus’ Monday debut at New York’s Town Hall Theater. To be generally smooth technically with a new host, new format, new network – while being on remote – is no small fete.

No doubt you’d like to know which brave advertisers returned for Imus’ debut. So did I, so I noted every one between 6 and 9 a.m. on Monday: Hackensack Univ. Med. Center; Subaru (NY dealers); Andersen Windows; Hanley Rehab Center; NY Oil Heating Assoc.; NetJets; JH Cohn (accounting); Credit Card Relief; [Somebody’s] Thermometer (I couldn’t understand the name); Garment.com; “Book of the Dead”; Heart Inst. of Staten Is.; Mohegan Sun Casino Hotel; Bigelow Tea; Accountemps; Optimum Voice; Sirius; Emergen-C (:10s); Philips Norelco (:10s); iO TV; 1-800-MATTRESS; B&H Electronics (news adjacency); and quite a few PSAs, promos and, I suspect, shorter breaks than will be the norm in the future. Sadly, no Peerless Boilers.

What does Al Sharpton think of all this? I couldn’t care less. You’ll have to ask him.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch – oops, sorry, WABC – bumped wakeup-show co-star Curtis Sliwa, complaining that he is “contractually required” to solo the 5 a.m. hour, told listeners Monday that he was also kicked out of his old studio because it’s now “Imus only.”

Over at CBS’s K-Rock and XM, Opie & Anthony provided running commentary during Imus’ cross-town comeback. Noting that Imus stopped down several times to apologize yet again, Anthony poked the cowpoke: “Imus, you’ve got the job. You can shut up now.”

After playing a cut of Imus saying, “It’ll be a great radio program,” Opie said, “It was. That’s key. It WAS.” (Somehow the terms pot, kettle and black come to mind.)

At 9:00, O&A blew off XM-only and briefly (very) dropped in on Imus at Town Hall.

Spotting a bunch of empty seats there, one industry observer told me, “There was no sellout. Except for perhaps Imus.”

Say it ain’t so, Don. We’ll be listening. We want YOU back.

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John Mainelli is a consultant and a former WABC program director. He can be reached at johnmainelli@msn.com. The views expressed are his own.


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** INsight!** Paragon Media CEO Mike Henry.

Wednesday, November 29, 2007
--published by http://www.insideradio.com/


Okay, so Arbitron has moved back the rollout of PPM in all markets beyond Philadelphia and Houston. Is anyone really surprised? I remember sitting in the first industry presentation on the PPM concept many years ago, and thinking, “We’ll be lucky to see this by 2005.” Then, several years later in a similar meeting updating PPM progress I remember thinking, “Shoot, we won’t see this by 2010.” As it turns out, 2010 is about right.

On the surface, this is a catastrophe for radio. The entire industry and even Arbitron (at times) has made it clear that the diary methodology is inadequate and outdated, and now we have to sleep in the messy bed we made. It reminds me of radio stations that pissed on another station for years only to have to sell it as a sister station after it was purchased by the same company. Then it’s like drinking the water you pissed in for years – and it’s not fun. Now this is where radio finds itself with the yellow-stained diary.

The current PPM quibbling is ridiculous and it’s a waste of time. Anyone who believes the diary methodology is superior to PPM is simply wrong, and probably disingenuous. Clearly, the PPM is a better reporting measurement. It’s imperfect, the results are different, but it is such a leap beyond the diary that any comparisons between the two are moot. It’s time for radio to get on the PPM train.

However, we don’t have to punch our ticket to the same destination. This is an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to re-think and re-shape how radio is bought and sold. Now is our chance to use vastly improved methodologies to break some old ideas and challenge radio’s selling variables. With the diary, radio used to be all about frequency, but PPM shows that radio’s reach is also great. Move off of cost per points. Move onto reach, and frequency. Radio is still a more cost effective buy than television.

We’re sitting in a historic moment and we can reset the rules of selling radio time while this window is open. Some won’t want change and will argue the old view from the old train was fine. Maybe for them, but I’m betting the view from this new window could be much more pleasant - and much more rewarding. Living with the diary for more years in more markets is the worst of the new delay. However, there is a very real benefit that radio can achieve during the delay: Get your act together on a selling plan and create a new selling currency.

Our industry leaders seem to be great at shooting holes at a big new target (PPM), but very weak at planning ahead for its eventual and inevitable roll-out. If this doesn’t happen now, in this new window that was created by the latest PPM delays, then radio deserves to get steam-rolled by agencies and buyers when they do have PPM ratings in hand.

Finally, radio must accept that it must pay more for larger sample sizes to ensure reliability of PPM data. If they’d done this before now, they wouldn’t be sleeping in this messy bed. I know that’s a tough pill for operators to swallow (more money to Arbitron), but it’s an absolute necessity for PPM to work.

Out of every bad turn is a good turn, and my belief is that in the long run, radio is very lucky to have this new window of opportunity to use for its own advantage. C’mon radio, use this new opening to turn these lemons into lemonade – or that yellow drink you’re holding will taste much worse than lemonade.

Mike Henry is CEO of Paragon Media Strategies The views expressed are his own.

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